Small Joys

The small joys present in this small town are numerous. Since moving into Apartment G4 on the UMM campus, I have experienced a glorious handful of these moments interspersed between others in which I stop and wonder, "hey, where'd all my friends go?"

Our apartment lays on the east end of the campus. Our bedroom windows face east, and once again, I have the privilege to witness sunrise every morning over the wind turbine. To add to the glory of it all, my desk is right next to the door that leads to our balcony/staircase/fire escape. We have been leaving the door open to facilitate cross-ventilation and also to enjoy the view. So, sitting at my desk, I turn to my left and see my roommate and turn to my right and have a great view of the prairie.

The only downside to the open-door policy on the balcony is that we have managed quite the collection of house flies. There are dozens in our apartment. The four of us had some (morbid?) fun swatting at them with rolled up newspaper. We killed several, but many remain. While working on an essay at my desk, I managed to kill four with my bare hands. I am proudly maintaining a housefly graveyard on my desk to serve as a warning for the ones who remain....

I get an hour plus (!) of Spanish everyday :) A teacher I had for my first ever Spanish class at UMM just returned to teach a course for a professor that's on sabbatical this semester. She remembered me from four years ago when I could hardly pronounce "Me llamo Andrea." We had a good conversation yesterday, and I am looking forward to her class and taking advantage of her office hours to practice speaking!

We went out to Pomme de Terre Park for our ecology lab this morning. Walking around with a field notebook reminded me of academic excursions in Costa Rica. This time around my surroundings are a little less tropical and a little more... prairie :) Margaret walked us around a place we all know too well - the only place in town with bike trails - and we entered a new world. The names of the plants, and the insects that pollinate them. There's so much to know and understand about the dynamics of the ecosystem, the relationships between flowers and their visitors. Everyone in the class was curious and asking questions. It was great. I even snagged myself a pair of good lab partners!

Our apartment is probably the homiest home away from home I ever lived in. One of my roommates brought vases with her for decoration, and we filled them with prairie plants from the park or rather "weed bouquets". They're beautiful :) We also have a couple of antique pieces of furniture that make the generic living room really comfortable. And photos on shelves and on the walls. I've had to adjust to sharing less space with more people again, but the company I have in this apartment is certainly worth the extra effort.